September 29, 2011—Orange, CA
A difficult week. I injured myself working out last weekend, which is really slowing me down. I felt a pop right where my back and left hip connect and have been barely able to move since then (I’m not sure whether to classify it as a back or hip injury). Teaching has been a drag because of this (so has getting to and from my campuses), and when I’m at home I’ve been pretty much bedridden. I’m still in a fair bit of pain, but the back/hip has loosened up a bit and I can get around better. I’ve had similar injuries before—they usually hurt like hell for about a week and then cause me discomfort for at least a few weeks after that. In other words, the whole thing sucks mightily.
I’ve been really busy too—lots of work for school. For next semester, I’ve been asked to teach a class in Native American cultures, which I’ve never done before. This is going to entail a massive amount of research to do right, research which I’ve already started. Add this to my normal workload, the reading I’m doing for the new cultural anthropology reader I’m putting together, and the stuff I’m doing to revive BSP and I’ve got a lot on my plate. Because of all this I don’t have much of a life at the moment. This will eventually wear on me, I’m sure. But right now I’m so into what I’m doing that I haven’t really noticed how narrow things have become (physically and emotionally, if not intellectually).
Still, I’m feeling good overall, happy about where I am in general in life. This happiness is coming most directly from the fact that I can really see where I’m going as a writer and how my work will tie (is tying) into the world around me.
Right now I have at least three books I see myself writing in the next few years, books that will be combining my literary interests with my studies of anthropology and ecology. I’m starting the third Backwaters book, and soon I will expand into non-fiction, which will mean the Greek book I’ve got planned, plus a book worth of essays that explore the philosophical and scientific underpinnings of my current fiction. What are these underpinnings? I’ve hit a place in life where I’m completely rejecting capitalism and even the idea of the nation state; both are institutions of totalitarianism, by definition. I also reject the idea of “growth,” as the term is generally used—more oppression in the name of “progress” and “improvement” that is in reality the destruction of the wild world and human socio-cultural systems in order that their components can be more easily exploited by a foolish few. I now realize that I am an anarchist in the way Thoreau was. This also makes me a conservative, in the sense that I’m actually interested in conserving things, such as our ability to live as free beings in a world where other creatures are allowed to do the same thing. I’m getting more radical in every way as I get older, as I learn more. But only radical in comparison to the radically strange and destruction cultural phenomena of our age, which are actually way out of line with the rest of human history. I am a radical only as a conservative counterpoint to the insanity of the permanent-growth economy and the corporate state. All this and much more lies at the roots of my fiction and will lie at the roots of my non-fiction. I am not an angry man, just one with increasingly clearing vision. I am a man who just wants to live a free wild life and take as many people with me on this journey who want to come along …
Big words. Big thoughts and ideas. Too big, feeling swamped by them. That’s why I write formally, so as not to drown in all I’m thinking, understanding, and feeling. Jesus, where’d all this come from? …
A difficult week. I injured myself working out last weekend, which is really slowing me down. I felt a pop right where my back and left hip connect and have been barely able to move since then (I’m not sure whether to classify it as a back or hip injury). Teaching has been a drag because of this (so has getting to and from my campuses), and when I’m at home I’ve been pretty much bedridden. I’m still in a fair bit of pain, but the back/hip has loosened up a bit and I can get around better. I’ve had similar injuries before—they usually hurt like hell for about a week and then cause me discomfort for at least a few weeks after that. In other words, the whole thing sucks mightily.
I’ve been really busy too—lots of work for school. For next semester, I’ve been asked to teach a class in Native American cultures, which I’ve never done before. This is going to entail a massive amount of research to do right, research which I’ve already started. Add this to my normal workload, the reading I’m doing for the new cultural anthropology reader I’m putting together, and the stuff I’m doing to revive BSP and I’ve got a lot on my plate. Because of all this I don’t have much of a life at the moment. This will eventually wear on me, I’m sure. But right now I’m so into what I’m doing that I haven’t really noticed how narrow things have become (physically and emotionally, if not intellectually).
Still, I’m feeling good overall, happy about where I am in general in life. This happiness is coming most directly from the fact that I can really see where I’m going as a writer and how my work will tie (is tying) into the world around me.
Right now I have at least three books I see myself writing in the next few years, books that will be combining my literary interests with my studies of anthropology and ecology. I’m starting the third Backwaters book, and soon I will expand into non-fiction, which will mean the Greek book I’ve got planned, plus a book worth of essays that explore the philosophical and scientific underpinnings of my current fiction. What are these underpinnings? I’ve hit a place in life where I’m completely rejecting capitalism and even the idea of the nation state; both are institutions of totalitarianism, by definition. I also reject the idea of “growth,” as the term is generally used—more oppression in the name of “progress” and “improvement” that is in reality the destruction of the wild world and human socio-cultural systems in order that their components can be more easily exploited by a foolish few. I now realize that I am an anarchist in the way Thoreau was. This also makes me a conservative, in the sense that I’m actually interested in conserving things, such as our ability to live as free beings in a world where other creatures are allowed to do the same thing. I’m getting more radical in every way as I get older, as I learn more. But only radical in comparison to the radically strange and destruction cultural phenomena of our age, which are actually way out of line with the rest of human history. I am a radical only as a conservative counterpoint to the insanity of the permanent-growth economy and the corporate state. All this and much more lies at the roots of my fiction and will lie at the roots of my non-fiction. I am not an angry man, just one with increasingly clearing vision. I am a man who just wants to live a free wild life and take as many people with me on this journey who want to come along …
Big words. Big thoughts and ideas. Too big, feeling swamped by them. That’s why I write formally, so as not to drown in all I’m thinking, understanding, and feeling. Jesus, where’d all this come from? …
3 comments:
Damn, sorry about the hip/back. That's gotta suck on the moped. I hear ya re growth; our continuing attempts to consume our way out of these economic straits are doomed in the long as well as the short run.
I think I'll eventually sway you on the other aspects of my rant too.
Back/hip still sucks. Nearly three weeks straight of 24-7 pain. I keep re-injuring it. Finally took a day off work. Hopefully that will help.
I was talking to someone the other day about our modern idea of unlimited growth and he mentioned that it partially stems from a supreme court decision way back when Henry Ford wanted to lower prices and his stock holders sued him. The stock holders won setting the precedent for companies doing anything and everything they can to continue growing and maximizing profits - lest they be sued by the stock holders. (Not an independently verified comment, but could be some truth to it).
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